[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 79 (Friday, May 12, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4904-H4905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           OSHA UNDER ATTACK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, OSHA, the agency responsible for the health 
and safety of workers in this Nation, is presently under intense 
attack. Particularly my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Norwood], who is a fellow member of the Economic and Educational 
Opportunities Committee, has launched a relentless series of attacks on 
OSHA.
  [[Page H4905]] Today, I would like to make a special appeal to 
Congressman Norwood that we lower our voices and make a sincere effort 
to humanize our discussion. Instead of focusing on the overwhelming but 
abstract statistics such as the 56,000 hard-working Americans who die 
each year from job related causes, from now on let us emphasize instead 
the individual workers with names and faces.
  There are workers in Mr. Norwood's district like William McDaniel, 
who without adequate restraining protection fell 80 feet off a 
television tower to his death in Pendergrass, GA. Like Paul Powell, who 
was crushed in the unguarded drive shaft of a machine at an Augusta, 
GA, plant. Like Earnest Gosnell of Homer, GA, who was operating a 
timber log skidder that had no safety belts when the machine overturned 
and crushed him. these fine Americans were all residents of Mr. 
Norwood's district in Georgia.
  What's really alarming here is that Mr. Norwood and so many other 
Republicans show no concern whatsoever for these workers and the other 
56,000 hard-working Americans who die each year from work-related 
causes. It is really disappointing and tragic that so many Members of 
Congress like Mr. Norwood, would rather launch a cold-hearted and 
sweeping attack on a Federal agency than do everything possible to 
protect their own constituents.
  It is the duty of every Member of Congress to recognize and remember 
that OSHA protects the lives of workers in every district.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the great things about the Vietnam War Memorial 
is that the Vietnam War Memorial names names of each individual soldier 
who gave his life for his country. I do not think we should ever again 
have monuments for unknown soldiers. Why have celebrations of unknown 
soldiers when you could name the names and have the faces? It will make 
it less likely than for those who make decisions about war in the 
future to be careless or casual when they are making those decisions.
  In the same way we ought to try and humanize all the work we do here 
in Congress. In the budget that has been prepared by the Republicans, 
OSHA has been drastically reduced. OSHA next week will be under attack 
in the Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee. An omnibus 
bill which will deal with work-related protections will be on the floor 
of the committee, and OSHA will again be under attack.
  OSHA saves lives. Stop and consider that OSHA saves lives. Fifty-six 
thousand people every year die of accidents on the job or work-related 
causes, diseases they contract on the job or accidents they have and 
later die in the hospital away from the job. Six thousand die 
immediately in accidents on the job, but 56,000 people a year is as 
many people as died, almost as many people that died, in the Vietnam 
war over the whole 7-year period of the Vietnam war.
                              {time}  1345

  It is a very serious matter. Accidents in the workplace, conditions 
in the workplace, are very serious. Let us not condemn our workers to 
unsafe conditions unnecessarily. OSHA protects lives.
  Medicaid protects lives too. In the same budget that is going to 
reduce OSHA, we have tremendous reductions for Medicaid. I am not 
talking about Medicare, because we can talk about Medicare and the 
reductions there. That also needs to be debated. But Medicare will be 
protected. It will be discussed at length on this floor.
  Greater cuts have been made in Medicaid than have been made in 
Medicare, and the Republican budget proposes to get rid of Medicaid as 
an entitlement. Medicaid is health care for poor people. We are going 
to have a second-class health care system sanctioned by the Federal 
Government. One system for those not in Medicaid, those who are in 
Medicare and can afford Medicare and can afford private insurance, and 
another system for the poor, that is financed by the Government, a 
second-class system that will be left to the States to run it. And 
there will be no Federal entitlements. When the States run out of 
money, if you are sick or ill, you will not get any help.
  Those are human beings out there with faces. Those are people that we 
all know. Somebody will know the workers who are killed in accidents or 
the workers who die from job related causes. Somebody knows somebody 
who is going to die as a result of those cuts in Medicaid and Medicare. 
Let us not proceed with an across-the-board cut in Medicaid of 18 
percent, higher than the cut in Medicare, across-the-board cut, and 
assume that human beings are not going to die as a result.
  Second-class health care is dangerous health care. I once had a 
situation where a hospital about to go broke in my district told me 
that we are down to such a level that we cannot afford to really 
sterilize our towels properly. We do not have the equipment.
  I said to the administrator of that hospital, if you cannot sterilize 
your towels properly, it is time to close the hospital. Let us not try 
to keep it open.
  The provision of second-class health care is dangerous and deadly. If 
we treat people as numbers and do not treat them as human beings, we 
run the risk of destroying lives. Let us lower our voices and look at 
the faces again.

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